No time for blogging!

It seems I really don't have the time for this blog anymore. I have to stay up late just to try and get a post up each month! I have a number of emails that I should be replying to, but always time gets away. At least I feel like a blog update lets family/friends know I'm still alive even if they're not getting an email from me!

Nothing out of the ordinary happening here. Abigail had her ECG at the hospital on Thursday last week and thankfully they didn't find anything wrong (heart was structurally normal), so I guess that means it was an innocent murmur that the consultant found last month. Benjamin continues to struggle with his eczema. We had a really good week recently where there was hardly any trouble spots (of course, as always, this was following a course of steroid/antibiotic cream) but it was lovely and soft for quite a long time. But then he started getting red/purple patches all round his eyes (formerly only something he'd had when he had a reaction to egg or had infected skin in other places) so it's left me a bit puzzled why it started with his eyes that time. And of course, his hands and legs were soon in a bad way. Last night he was awake just before 4am and came through to our bed. I was then awake for at least 1.5 hours trying to calm him down and keep him from scratching himself too badly. :( Despite all his limbs being covered (non-opening mittens and closed feet) he's still very clever and able to do damage to himself. He moves his fingers around and can have his hands bleeding quite badly, despite being fully enclosed with mittens! Thankfully he eventually got back to sleep, tho only for Abigail to come in and wake him up around 7am (when he would have probably slept for another hour or more if undisturbed)! She is usually the first one up in the house and isn't very good at being quiet!

As for Clement, he's as full of mischief as ever - if not more! Always making messes and getting into things. He's finally started walking (as of just over a week ago) but then he got lazy again and can't be bothered very often. But he did as many as 5-9 steps in one go when he first got excited at his ability! :) All day long, he does nothing but talk about balls - he sees balls in everything - even thinks our noses are the shape of a ball! Yes, truly obsessed! Cars (known as "brum brum") are another firm favourite, as are babies! He loves to pat my tummy and say "babba". Only problem is, now he thinks he's got one inside him too! LOL Anytime he sees his tummy he says "babba" and gives it a good pat. He's lots of fun, that's for sure.

This was actually nearly a month ago! I had too many photos last time I posted, so these 2 of them in the paddling pool didn't get posted. We've had some warm weather since, but not much - and not as warm as that week in the end of May.

All having lots of fun, even if a bit crowded! You might notice the water is white - that's due to some Aveeno Bath Oil, so Benjamin can join in the fun! :-) His skin didn't benefit from water last summer, but I found that a bit of bath oil made a big difference.

I did say I'd post all about the various dietary changes I was trying to make for my family, but I'm not sure when I'll have any spare time for that. So a few photos and maybe I'll share a recipe for anyone interested! ;-) The above photo shows the process for making sourdough bread! My lovely wooden grain grinder is on the left, with the blue bowl containing freshly ground spelt flour. Then the middle bowl is the beginning of my bread dough. And the bowl on the right is the rye sourdough starter. The children love to watch me baking, but don't enjoy the noise of the grinder!

5 pans of dough, ready to begin a 7 hour rising period!

Nicely risen, after approx 7 hours. (I might add that I've since done the dough rather more "soupy", which is much more ideal for sourdough. Some of my earlier loaves were rather hard and later changes have given a more satisfactory bread!)

All baked and now cooling!

Now, I don't really have time for any recipes, but I did want to share how to make something with "soaked" flour. So below you'll find Buttermilk Biscuits (scones here in the UK). And this pic below shows some I made with spelt flour.

Buttermilk Biscuits

3 1/2 cups freshly ground spelt or whole wheat flour

1 cup buttermilk (tho I've used yogurt sometimes too)

4 tablespoons melted butter

1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

unbleached white flour

Mix flour with buttermilk to form a thick dough. Cover and leave in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours. Place in food processor and process several minutes to knead. Blend in remaining ingredients. Remove dough to a well-floured pastry cloth or board and sprinkle with unbleached white flour to prevent sticking. Roll dough to about 3/4 inch thickness. Cut biscuits with a glass and place on a buttered baking sheet. Bake at 350F for about 40 minutes. (Though be careful to watch them, as my oven bakes them a lot quicker than this.)

Another "soaked" thing I make is porridge - which we have every morning for breakfast! It's delicious and very easy too!

Breakfast Porridge

1 1/2 cups of oats

1 1/2 cups warm filtered water plus 3 tablespoons yogurt, kefir, or buttermilk

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 1/2 cups filtered water

For highest benefits and best assimilation, porridge should be soaked overnight or even longer. Once soaked, oatmeal cooks up in less than 5 minutes - truly a fast food!

Mix oats with warm water mixture, cover and leave in a warm place for at least 7 hours and as long as 24 hours. Bring an additional 1 1/2 cup of water to a boil with sea salt. Add soaked oats, reduce heat, cover and simmer several minutes. Serve with butter, honey and milk (though my children like unrefined cane sugar on top of theirs!).

So, that's all the recipes I have time for, but some very simple ones for anyone who'd like to like to try something healthy! :-) Both are taken from the amazing book "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges-Politically-Dictocrats/dp/0967089735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277163307&sr=8-1
(which is actually a real bargain at just over 12 pounds with free postage for a 670 page book! tho it has to come from America and takes a little while to get over here - well worth the wait though!)

Abigail and Benjamin enjoying the sunshine in the back garden

Clement eating a *3rd* pancake for breakfast one morning! These were some "soaked" buckwheat and wholemeal pancakes which were really good. Only problem is trying to mix Benjamin's requirement for 'egg-free' pancakes, together with soaked ones - doesn't work very well, unfortunately.

Already helping mummy!

We finally managed to replace these awful brown couch covers! I thought we'd need a visit to Ikea to get them, but we found that the Edinburgh store would post them to us for only 20 pounds! Well, that's a bit expensive for postage on just cushion covers - but we got 2 foam mattresses for the boys beds at the same time (without any extra postage charge) which made it a very good deal indeed!

The result - lovely bright couch & rocking chair! :-) (Well, I like them anyway!) But I'm not sure what else in the sitting room matches the couch now! I'm convinced the blue lamp shade doesn't go anymore, but what about the curtains & rug? I think it looks a bit better at a distance (and in real life) compared to the photo. And after all, the room is frequently covered with children, toys and books, so not sure how important a matching room is anyway! LOL

Benjamin and Clement tucked up in Clement's "new" big boy bed! No, he's not sleeping in there yet, but since someone local on Freecycle was giving away a matching pair of Ikea beds, I thought they'd be perfect for when Clement moves into his brother's room!

Excited about his big boy bed! He climbs up on it and says "night night" as he covers himself with a blanket. :-)

Attempting to do some schoolwork last week, with Clement in the middle of the table, of course!

Benjamin colouring a picture instead (as he wasn't concentrating on his "lessons" that morning)

My lovely Clement! :-)

He loves his car!

Walking in the front garden - no shoes!

The sort of mess Clement likes to make! He emptied his milk out in the floor while I was cooking breakfast the other morning, and then put his face down on the floor to drink it (hence the milk dripping from his forehead!).

Phew, I've actually got to the end of this! Must get some sleep now.

A month without blogging

Nearly a month has passed without a post here! So as it happens, I've got enough photos for two! This one here is random photos over the past 30 days or so and I've got a post below this one which is from our "homeschool field trip" to the Highland Wildlife Park.

Seems the past month has been a busy one! I've been doing a fair bit of reading/research into diet/nutrition and making changes to the foods we eat. Hopefully it won't be so time consuming once I'm in the routine of things, but lately I've felt like I'm on my feet ALL day until I finally crash into bed around (or after) midnight. But once I've worked out what we're eating and where I'm buying the foods from, and meals etc then hopefully it will become habit, as is already happening with some of it! Maybe I should post a blog another time just about the food related changes I'm implementing! :-) But I've bought a lovely German grain mill for making flour. And now I've got 25kg bags of rye and spelt grain for making sourdough bread. And at last, I've managed to "catch wild yeast" in the air for my sourdough starter and made a lovely batch of 4 loaves of bread yesterday. It's amazing to have bread that is only made from water, flour and salt - NO packs of yeast, and NO sugar! And it's very yummy too. Also, breakfast is porridge that has been soaked overnight in water & kefir, or scones (biscuits to Americans) I soak the flour in buttermilk or yogurt for 12-24 hours first. Fermented grains are supposed to be the only way our body can easily digest them, so I'm trying to get into the habit of a new way of cooking/baking! :-) And the taste is lovely too! So yeah, plenty of things to change. Hoping to buy organic meats next, so have bought a new fridge/freezer (meaning we now have 2!) so we'll have freezer space for buying it in bulk. But it's fantastic to have so much fridge space, especially with buying lots of yogurt and other dairy products! But anyway, enough about foods/diet for now - I'll save that for (maybe) another post some other time. :-)

Two weeks ago was our trip to the animal park, which the separate post below is about. Then the following Thursday we took Abigail to the hospital in Inverness to see a paediatrician. She's been getting pain/cramps in her legs (starting in her thighs) since towards the end of April. I took her to the GP who couldn't find anything visibly wrong and referred her to the paediatrician. The first time it happened she was crouching down on the pavement outside to draw on some paper and came in the house *screaming* about a pain. She ended up being sore for a couple of hours and not able to walk very easily. It's happened quite a few times since, sometimes severe enough for her to scream for several minutes, and other times she's just unable to walk/move for a short while. It does mean she needs us to carefully listen out for her, as on occasions she's been coming down the stairs when she suddenly gets the pain and can't move, or on her way to the bathroom but can't stand up to reach the door handle or get to the toilet herself. Anyway, the GP thought the paed. might do an x-ray or ultrasound (which I prepared the frightened Abigail for as we went to the hospital!) but what I didn't know was they only wanted to take some bloods! :'( That proved *very* difficult. I thought it was bad enough when Clement was 8 weeks old, but wow, trying to hold down a 4.5 year old who is hysterical was very hard! Poor thing - she was very upset and they had to attempt it at least 5 times due to all her movements. Thankfully they got it in the end, but not without some bruising to her hand. Also while at the hospital the paed. noticed a murmur in her heart. It seems it's very common for children to have innocent ones, so we hope and pray that nothing is actually wrong in that regard. But they do want to do an ECG sometime soon to make sure everything is okay.

And then on Tuesday this week I had a detailed scan at the hospital. It was my first time to have a 20 week scan, so it was quite amazing to see such a detailed view of the baby. Everything looked perfect too, which was good to know. And I actually asked if they could tell me if it was a boy or girl! ;-) I've never asked before, but as much as Abigail has been hoping for a sister, I thought it might be nice to know ahead of time, should I need to prepare her for a third brother. BUT, they said it's a GIRL! :-) So that's quite exciting. Then after the scan we had our "monthly" homeschool get together which is always fun. It's nice to meet new people and see "old" friends too. The children enjoy the games, crafts and friendship too. And then on Friday Dad and Anna came to see us, which was lovely. They stayed overnight and then went to Lochcarron on Saturday for the weekend. They were back here on Monday afternoon and left on Wednesday, and are hopefully back in Texas by now! It was nice to see them again after such a long time and the children really enjoyed them being here too.

So yes, busy few weeks, really! Plenty of photos of the children below.

Minus the redness around his eyes and face, I think this photo reminds me of ones I've seen of my dad or one of his brothers when they were a child. Anyone agree with me? :) Abigail & Clement definitely favour their daddy's side of the family, so Benjamin is my only "Little Smith"! LOL Anyway, I really like that photo of him and think it shows how he looks like my side of the family. ;-)

As you can see in the above photos, this is what Benjamin's face looks like after eat *anything* with egg in it. :-( His sensitivity to eggs has become a lot worse over the past few months, meaning it can be stressful at times to make sure everything he eats is totally egg-free - especially when we're out or someone else is offering him something to eat. It's hard on him too, as so many yummy baked goods have eggs - Mars candy bars included! The above photo was taken after he'd eaten some rice crispies snacks I'd made with melted Mars bars. :( And then the eczema/itchiness gets so bad that I have to resort to steroids/antibiotics every time to clear it up again. The reaction happens about 12 hours or so after he's eaten the food, so it makes me think it's not a true egg allergy but perhaps gut related (leaky gut syndrome?) and the redness/itching/eczema is happening when the food is being digested. Obviously I'm not a doctor, but I'm left to think/sort a lot of things out myself when neither GPs or even the dermatology department seem to want to offer any help. It's often a case of them asking me what I want them to prescribe, rather than them being the experts offering their expertise! So yeah, plenty of time is spent looking after Benjamin. But he's my lovely special little boy and is worth every minute of it! :-) We recently had a very severe spell of the eczema after I started him on a therapeutic dose of probiotics. I hadn't realised I needed to give him 1/10th of a capsule to start with and only increase it by 1/10th every 7 days or so....and I started him on a whole capsule. Bad idea! He ended up with eczema coming out everywhere (like we'd not had in *months*) and his face even looked how it only looks after he's had eggs! But this is a known thing to happen, known as a "die off" effect - the probiotics are working in your gut and the bad stuff in there is giving off toxins and can make whatever conditions you have worse. So maybe it's a sign that there's hope and healing up his gut will help in the long term. I've finally cleared up his skin with Fucibet Lipid cream (steroid antibiotic mix), so hope to soon start him on the 1/10th capsule - if I can work out how to divide a tiny amount of powder into 10 portions! :-P

Clement looking very pleased with his new car seat!

Abigail reading a story to Clement - it's wonderful having a child old enough to read books to the younger ones! Yesterday it was probably the only point in the day when Benjamin sat still & quiet for 40 minutes - when Abigail was reading to him! :-)

The favourite spot of my three children - at the counter watching mummy cook or do dishes! I love having such an open kitchen with plenty of space for them to be around me, especially on the days where I'm in the kitchen for so much of the day!

Eating, as always! Crumbs all over him and floor! He can end up going through 3 sets of clothes per day!

Another thing he loves to do - be outside for ages! He's still not thinking about walking but will crawl around the garden and thinks it's the most fantastic thing to do! The warm days we had earlier in the month were lovely - but it's back to damp and cold weather just now.

Balls are his other favourite - he plays with them all day long. He enjoys throwing them up the stairs, climbing half way up, and then throwing them down again. He's quite good at throwing too!

Driving is lots of fun!

Fun in the sunshine

And crawling out on his head when he wants to leave the car!

Moving chairs around the house so he can reach heights is very common - looks like he's trying to find out how to get out the front door!

My boys out in the lovely warm sun

My three beautiful children - it's such a privilege to be their mother! Sometimes it's easy to get caught up thinking about all work a mother has to do (like right now when I've not finished the dishes and it's 11pm, due to Clement only recently going to sleep!!) But they are a wonderful blessing and there's nothing else in all the world I'd rather do or be than their mummy! :-)

Oh yes, chairs are wonderful - this time it's the top of the fridge he's getting to!

And of course, the table is his favourite place to be. I guess it put him level with me while I'm in the kitchen. He often sits there for ages while I'm cooking or doing other things in the kitchen. But sometimes he likes to just turn around and back off the table feet first as if it were a low bed - and then crash! Seems he's always falling off of things, though at the same time, he's actually quite a capable climber!

Right, dishes for me to do! I'm sure I should have finished them first, but if I had, this would have never gotten done. I've been meaning to post something for weeks, but the evenings/nights just vanish before I know it.

Homeschool Group Trip to Highland Wildlife Park

Two weeks ago we had a lovely group trip to the Highland Wildlife Park in Kingussie (about 70 something miles from here). It was organised by our homeschool group so we got group admission rates of half price, which made the trip even better! :-) There were 10 families who were able to make it (about 40 people). It was a very cold day for the middle of May (as seen by winter hats and coats in below photos) but it was still enjoyable.

Clement and Benjamin watching the Japanese snow monkeys

A group of the monkeys eating - there was also a mother monkey with a 10 day old baby, but I didn't manage to get a photo of it. It was too cute!

Tigers! Clement giggled at the tiger cubs wrestling - I wondered if he thought it was a bit like how brothers behave with each other!

R, Benjamin and Abigail sitting on a wooden wolf! Their new little friend R was born only 3-4 days before Benjamin!

One lonely European Wolf

A Scottish Wild Cat eating a mouse - Benjamin said these cats were his favourite animal at the park (probably because they were eating a live animal! LOL)

Benjamin and his friend J (born on the same day as each other!) :-)

Benjamin, Abigail and J

Clement standing up at the monkey enclosure

Benjamin and R in the background behind Abigail and J

European Bison - in the driving part of the park

Elk

European Bison and some wild horses

Mercedes the Polar Bear! :-)

Camels